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"Brooks’ beef with iTunes is that it is grounded in selling singles, while Brooks says he wants his music sold as complete albums to protect the songwriters and

"Brooks’ beef with iTunes is that it is grounded in selling singles, while Brooks says he wants his music sold as complete albums to protect the songwriters and music publishers who depend on income from tracks included on those recordings." In other words, he's concerned about a world where people aren't forced into spending over ten bucks to hear the song they want, paying for a bunch of cameos they may not care about, even if those people worked real, real hard on that music. A lot of those singles selling on iTunes are replacing piracy, not album sales, and taking away the option to spend $1.29 will just drive people to services like spotify.

bitJericho 12y ago
If an entire CD minus one song is crap, then it's probably just all crap. For the few artists that do have only one gem, they shouldn't have to sell that for 99 cents. I'm all for what's going on here.
- stephenr 12y ago
  They allow radio stations to play one track at a time individually, so I call bullshit on the "this needs to be heard together" line If the other songs on the album are good, letting someone buy individual tracks means more potential customers for that other track.
  - slantyyz 12y ago
    But the point is, the seller can sell in whatever way he likes. I'm sure most of them can do math and realize they'll lose sales by not selling singles. While I get that people are very attached to music, I don't really get why people care so much about being able to buy a single from an artist who doesn't want to sell it to them that way (which is distinct from a label not wanting to sell music that way against the wishes of the artists). Just to be clear, I buy mostly singles in the era of the ITMS, but if some artists don't want my money, then I don't give it to them. There are already plenty of other great songs out there by people who will gladly sell me their songs as singles. Missing out on a few songs in my daily playlist is far from being the end of the world.
res0nat0r 12y ago
You aren't being forced to by any music at all I'm pretty sure.
- Igglyboo 12y ago
  If you want to download a song legally and the only option is a $10 album then yes you are being forced to spend $10 for a song. We can argue the semantics of the word "forced" all day but I'm pretty sure everyone understood what he meant.
  - res0nat0r 12y ago
    force: coercion or compulsion, especially with the use or threat of violence. The seller is perfectly in the right to charge you $10 to buy an album as a whole, take it or leave it. You don't have the right to download a song illegally since you think the price is too high, sorry.
    - pyre 12y ago
      > The seller is perfectly in the right to I could cure cancer and be "perfectly in the right" to only sell it for millions of dollars to the ultra-rich, but that doesn't meant it's not a shitty thing to do.
      - res0nat0r 12y ago
        You are seriously comparing an artist wanting you to buy their album as a whole vs. piecemeal to curing cancer?
        pyre 12y ago
        Is it difficult to see that they are both examples of actions that that might be within legal rights, but that others can debate the morality / 'dick-ishness' of? Does anyone really think that I feel Garth Brooks' move is akin to actually withholding a cure for cancer?
PeterWhittaker 12y ago
I'm of two minds. On the one hand, as a consumer, I love being able to buy single songs, or, better yet, pay for unlimited play (I recently switched from rdio to Google Play Music, both of which have offline modes). On the other hand, as a creative artist (I'm semi-professional actor: I do get paid, sometimes well, but it's not enough to live - in other words, I get rewarded for a rewarding, mind-and-soul-expanding hobby), I know that sometimes that "one gem" (to quote another comment) is the result of the entire creative process that went into the complete album. $0.99 per person for the one smash song just doesn't seem like enough, unless it is a PSY-level smash. On the third hand, there may be enough people producing music, et al, for most of us to get adequate entertainment and there may be just enough being making it big or having a patron at a high enough level to move things forward and get us high-quality work, so perhaps the economics are well in hand.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  The problem is simply that music has dropped in value. Now, I'm not saying that it isn't expensive to make, or your time isn't worth anything. I'm saying I'm awash in content. You won't sell me your single? No prob! I'm off to Spotify, or Rdio, or Pandora, or any number of other services. As the amount of music available increases, the cost/value of all music diminishes.
  - happyscrappy 12y ago
    If you can hear it on Pandora then you can have a copy of it if you want, people only pay for the convenience.
- ThomPete 12y ago
  If one really feel like that one can simply turn 10 singles into one song.
- mhurron 12y ago
  > I know that sometimes that "one gem" (to quote another comment) is the result of the entire creative process that went into the complete album. That doesn't mean the rest of the album is worth anything, or that the artist is entitled to getting money for the tracks people don't want.
radley 12y ago
Apple got the hint: iTunes 11+ is now organized primarily for artists & albums; most single song based organization was gutted.
freehunter 12y ago
Garth Brooks isn't on Spotify either. I bought his stuff on tape and then on CD, but if I want to stream it from the Internet, too bad. For shame, Garth.
k-mcgrady 12y ago
>> "In other words, he's concerned about a world where people aren't forced into spending over ten bucks to hear the song they want, paying for a bunch of cameos they may not care about, even if those people worked real, real hard on that music." I think it's down to marketing. When the record company picks the single and promotes it that's the song people will buy from the album. It may not even be the best song on it or the one you will like the most. I've seen a few polls recently where people were asked to pick their favourite track from a recently released album (they had bought the full album). The decision was pretty evenly split over all the tracks and the ones that actually fared worst were the singles. So my point is, you're not buying the song you want or will like the best, you're buying the song the record company has promoted the most and probably missing out on some great stuff.
hamburglar 12y ago
You can buy individual tracks on GhostTunes, it's just not the way they're promoting things. It's just a marketing and user experience strategy to encourage album purchases, not refusing to sell singles. Personally, I think it's a good idea: it's better for the artist to be able to sell whole albums, and as a listener, I resist the urge to buy singles because when I listen to entire albums, I discover great tracks that weren't obvious gems on first listen. If I can't find more than one or two songs I like from an artist, I guess I'm just not a fan.
ChuckMcM 12y ago
Yup, pretty much. I would not buy an album until I wanted at least 3 songs on it (yes I've got a number of 'greatest hits' albums :-)) The dynamic that song 'x' can be worth $1.29 to someone and song 'y' from the same album is not worth $1.29 is hard for some to grasp. I believe Garth has just enrolled in a very expensive class on "Information Economics." :-) We'll see how it turns out for him (and others).
ryandrake 12y ago
An alternate way to ensure your album is only sold as an album would be to design/compose it as a single piece, deliberately making it difficult for your label or anyone else to chop it up into singles. Obviously this wouldn't work with all types of music. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarok_(Mike_Oldfield_album) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarok_(Mike_Oldfield_album)

bitJericho 12y ago

If an entire CD minus one song is crap, then it's probably just all crap. For the few artists that do have only one gem, they shouldn't have to sell that for 99 cents. I'm all for what's going on here.

stephenr 12y ago
They allow radio stations to play one track at a time individually, so I call bullshit on the "this needs to be heard together" line If the other songs on the album are good, letting someone buy individual tracks means more potential customers for that other track.
- slantyyz 12y ago
  But the point is, the seller can sell in whatever way he likes. I'm sure most of them can do math and realize they'll lose sales by not selling singles. While I get that people are very attached to music, I don't really get why people care so much about being able to buy a single from an artist who doesn't want to sell it to them that way (which is distinct from a label not wanting to sell music that way against the wishes of the artists). Just to be clear, I buy mostly singles in the era of the ITMS, but if some artists don't want my money, then I don't give it to them. There are already plenty of other great songs out there by people who will gladly sell me their songs as singles. Missing out on a few songs in my daily playlist is far from being the end of the world.

res0nat0r 12y ago

You aren't being forced to by any music at all I'm pretty sure.

Igglyboo 12y ago
If you want to download a song legally and the only option is a $10 album then yes you are being forced to spend $10 for a song. We can argue the semantics of the word "forced" all day but I'm pretty sure everyone understood what he meant.
- res0nat0r 12y ago
  force: coercion or compulsion, especially with the use or threat of violence. The seller is perfectly in the right to charge you $10 to buy an album as a whole, take it or leave it. You don't have the right to download a song illegally since you think the price is too high, sorry.
  - pyre 12y ago
    > The seller is perfectly in the right to I could cure cancer and be "perfectly in the right" to only sell it for millions of dollars to the ultra-rich, but that doesn't meant it's not a shitty thing to do.
    - res0nat0r 12y ago
      You are seriously comparing an artist wanting you to buy their album as a whole vs. piecemeal to curing cancer?
      - pyre 12y ago
        Is it difficult to see that they are both examples of actions that that might be within legal rights, but that others can debate the morality / 'dick-ishness' of? Does anyone really think that I feel Garth Brooks' move is akin to actually withholding a cure for cancer?

PeterWhittaker 12y ago

I'm of two minds. On the one hand, as a consumer, I love being able to buy single songs, or, better yet, pay for unlimited play (I recently switched from rdio to Google Play Music, both of which have offline modes). On the other hand, as a creative artist (I'm semi-professional actor: I do get paid, sometimes well, but it's not enough to live - in other words, I get rewarded for a rewarding, mind-and-soul-expanding hobby), I know that sometimes that "one gem" (to quote another comment) is the result of the entire creative process that went into the complete album. $0.99 per person for the one smash song just doesn't seem like enough, unless it is a PSY-level smash. On the third hand, there may be enough people producing music, et al, for most of us to get adequate entertainment and there may be just enough being making it big or having a patron at a high enough level to move things forward and get us high-quality work, so perhaps the economics are well in hand.

toomuchtodo 12y ago
The problem is simply that music has dropped in value. Now, I'm not saying that it isn't expensive to make, or your time isn't worth anything. I'm saying I'm awash in content. You won't sell me your single? No prob! I'm off to Spotify, or Rdio, or Pandora, or any number of other services. As the amount of music available increases, the cost/value of all music diminishes.
- happyscrappy 12y ago
  If you can hear it on Pandora then you can have a copy of it if you want, people only pay for the convenience.
ThomPete 12y ago
If one really feel like that one can simply turn 10 singles into one song.
mhurron 12y ago
> I know that sometimes that "one gem" (to quote another comment) is the result of the entire creative process that went into the complete album. That doesn't mean the rest of the album is worth anything, or that the artist is entitled to getting money for the tracks people don't want.

radley 12y ago

Apple got the hint: iTunes 11+ is now organized primarily for artists & albums; most single song based organization was gutted.

freehunter 12y ago

Garth Brooks isn't on Spotify either. I bought his stuff on tape and then on CD, but if I want to stream it from the Internet, too bad. For shame, Garth.

k-mcgrady 12y ago

>> "In other words, he's concerned about a world where people aren't forced into spending over ten bucks to hear the song they want, paying for a bunch of cameos they may not care about, even if those people worked real, real hard on that music." I think it's down to marketing. When the record company picks the single and promotes it that's the song people will buy from the album. It may not even be the best song on it or the one you will like the most. I've seen a few polls recently where people were asked to pick their favourite track from a recently released album (they had bought the full album). The decision was pretty evenly split over all the tracks and the ones that actually fared worst were the singles. So my point is, you're not buying the song you want or will like the best, you're buying the song the record company has promoted the most and probably missing out on some great stuff.

hamburglar 12y ago

You can buy individual tracks on GhostTunes, it's just not the way they're promoting things. It's just a marketing and user experience strategy to encourage album purchases, not refusing to sell singles. Personally, I think it's a good idea: it's better for the artist to be able to sell whole albums, and as a listener, I resist the urge to buy singles because when I listen to entire albums, I discover great tracks that weren't obvious gems on first listen. If I can't find more than one or two songs I like from an artist, I guess I'm just not a fan.

ChuckMcM 12y ago

Yup, pretty much. I would not buy an album until I wanted at least 3 songs on it (yes I've got a number of 'greatest hits' albums :-)) The dynamic that song 'x' can be worth $1.29 to someone and song 'y' from the same album is not worth $1.29 is hard for some to grasp. I believe Garth has just enrolled in a very expensive class on "Information Economics." :-) We'll see how it turns out for him (and others).

ryandrake 12y ago

An alternate way to ensure your album is only sold as an album would be to design/compose it as a single piece, deliberately making it difficult for your label or anyone else to chop it up into singles. Obviously this wouldn't work with all types of music. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarok_(Mike_Oldfield_album) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarok_(Mike_Oldfield_album)